Card Check: Labor’s Spin of Poll Results is All Wet, Chocolatey

The Employee Free Choice Act has prompted a number of public opinion surveys from supporters and opponents of the legislation, with the laborite supporters often making these argument: Polls show that the public supports unions, therefore the public supports the Employee Free Choice Act.

It’s specious, obviously, akin to arguing that because the public supports chocolate, members of the public demand to have big slabs of chocolate cake crammed down their throats until they choke to death.

Not satisfied with flawed syllogisms, Bret Jacobsen of Maverick Strategies LLC actually examined recent labor claims based on a Gallup Poll and found much overreaching. Yes, 59 percent of the public approves of unions, but there’s more. From today’s D.C. Examiner, “Numbers Don’t Add Up for Big Labor’s Main Goals in 2009“:

Unfortunately for union bosses, the Gallup union-approval numbers show that only one-third of Americans want unions to have more influence. That means two-thirds want unions to maintain or reduce their current level of power in society. Notably, independents show a slight preference for less union influence, rather than more.

Not satisfied with overreach, the unions are also engaging in their SOP calumny on the card check issue. At the AFL-CIO blog, one writer asserts the conservatives who voted against financial aid to the Detroit-based automobiles did so because of the Employee Free Choice Act. It’s a shoddy assertion based on weak reporting by the L.A. Times: “As the L.A. Times reported today, conservatives circulated ‘an action alert’ calling for lawmakers to ‘stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor.” We don’t even know what group or how widely the e-mail was circulated, but in any case, an outside group sending an e-mail does not translate into the grand conspiracy that labor’s blogofringe claims is under way. (And Democrats voted against the aid, as well.)